Let's get a politician to stand at the Stewart Avenue tram crossing during peak hour and do a ten minute doorstop as the trams block the arterial route more frequently than the 8-car, 1200-seat commuter trains from Central used to do.

The same money which Messrs Baird, Hazzard, and Berejiklian are spending (including their often bizarre promotional activities) could have lowered the electric train line into a cut-and-cover tunnel, which would have cut commuter journey times, allowed passengers including university students and law court users to emerge from Civic and Newcastle Stations without blocking traffic, from exits on the opposite side of Hunter and Wharf, and would not have seen covered Hunter Street with concrete obstructions and reduced parking.

As for developers, not only could they have applied to use airspace above the rail tunnel, but they could have paid for the privilege with a special levy to help defray the tunnel fitout costs.

City businesses need foot traffic, and the changes have reduced it. Delaying train commuters with a change at Newcastle West has driven some away, and others into cars to which they must quickly return to avoid parking fines, reducing their cash contribution to CBD shops and food outlets.

If you had set out to design a project less likely to deliver Revitalisation and Connectivity, you could hardly have put a better package together than Mike Baird did before resuming his banking career. We now await the first tram pedestrian death.

Comparing anything in Newcastle to the Gold Coast, shows just how backward we have been driven by NCC.

THe Gold Coast light rail is many kilometres long and actually goes somewhere. Ours will be a fairground attraction if they're lucky. It's a ludicrous comparison.

"there is a feeling within the conservative government that it has not received due credit for its work so far" don't worry next change of government when the books get looked at you will get your due credit from a royal commission.

As the millenniums say" Y2K " .
Or the baby boomers " why only 2 kilometres " ? Still we await our link road at John Hunter to start.
Constance and Gladys are out of their depth, still trying to get over Constance's
Ferry Mc Ferry Face debacle and the lies that followed.

Toy tram going from nowhere to nowhere

Constance has said his government won't fund any extension. We will have to wait until they are kicked out before there is even a hope of any light rail extension, and does anybody really think the next Labor government will fund it? I don't. So we are stuck with this traffic-blocking tiny segment of light rail that is non-viable because it doesn't go anywhere.

The light rail itself is technically flawed. Without wires or batteries our light rail is compelled to stop for 40 seconds at each stop to charge up, whether or not there are any passengers getting on or off. That adds 4 minutes of wasted time to a light rail passenger's journey, just sitting there doing nothing, along with the other stops at traffic lights. This government has sabotaged our CBD with this dud and they should be held to account for it.

The negativity expressed here in some of the posts was seen on the Gold Coast prior to introduction. All you hear now is requests for extensions. Having been in Newcastle just before Christmas, I'd have to say that things look promising: it's much more "to scale" than the heavy rail had become...............

A terrible wast of money. One thing about governments, they are good at spending taxpayers' money sometimes for not such a good return. In the case of the tram, I can't see any return.

Um, we don't use NSW's Opal card up here on the G... We use Queensland's GO Card instead.

Good article Michael, and I think you've been fair to all concerned. Even though everybody is entitled to be much harsher on Mr Arrogant Constance.